Chinese police on Thursday said they had arrested a 21-year-old
student for running five pornographic Websites with 210,000
registered users, amid a nationwide crackdown on online pornography
that authorities say is "perverting China's young minds."
The student, only identified as Zhu, was detained in the eastern
province of Shandong on April 12, after he was suspected
of operating five porn sites, containing almost 170,000
pornographic images and obscene movie clips, the Ministry of Public
Security announced.
About 210,000 people had signed up to the porn sites Zhu
allegedly operated - "Demon's Island,""Global Beauty Pictures,"
"Community of Bloom," "Moon Alliance" and "Pretty Vines," the
police said.
Police also announced on Thursday that they had closed 1,450
porn Web sites and deleted more than 30,000 obscene messages online
since the government launched a nationwide campaign to curb the
spread of pornography on the Internet on April 12.
Nearly 30 serious porn cases were cracked, the police said, but
did not give more details.
The campaign, expected to last six months, will target illegal
online activities such as distributing pornographic materials and
organizing cyber strip shows, and purge the Web of
sexually-explicit images, stories, and audio and video clips,
according to Zhang Xinfeng, vice minister of public security.
China had 137 million Internet users at the end of 2006, with
most of being young people. The current massive campaign was
launched as the government believes the young people need to be
protected from negative online influences.
A report by the Beijing Reformatory for Juvenile Delinquents
said 33.5 percent of its detainees were influenced by violent
online games or erotic websites when they committed crimes such as
robbery and rape.
(Xinhua News Agency April 27, 2007)